Tom Ridge confirms that the sky is blue!!

Tom Ridge, reasonably sane Republican and former head of the Department of Homeland Security has-- what else?-- a new (tell-all?) book coming out, called "The Test of Our Times: America Under Siege... and How We Can Be Safe Again". Reports indicate Ridge "wants to shake 'public complacency' over security" (complacency? I still have to go through airport security in my socks and surrender my toothpaste).

They also say Ridge indicates he "was pushed to raise the security alert on the eve of President Bush's re-election, something he saw as politically motivated and worth resigning over." This is a shock to almost no one, except maybe Joe The Plumber and that blond woman from Fox and Friends. Of course, it wasn't just one incident. It was a recurring theme. Keith Olbermann took a break from yelling at stuff a couple of years ago to do a really good report on the many terror-alert 'coincidences' during the Bush years-





I am posting this because a) history shouldn't so easily forget this aspect of the immediate post-9/11 political environment, and b) it's some good perspective as conservatives (well, the extremes anyway) go nuts insisting that there is no bigger threat to freedom than an affordable public health-insurance alternative.